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A Little Time Together

After the train had stopped and Ron and Daphne were sent to St Mungo's, the train continued to Hogwarts. Harry was forced to stay on the train, while Ginny and Hermione went with Ron. The last couple hours of the train ride were spent answering an Auror's questions. Even with an alibi, Harry was still considered a person of interest.

As he left the train and headed for the carriages, he was approached by none other than Gregory Goyle. Harry had thought this one of Draco Malfoy's thuggish cronies had found a nice cell in Azkaban for his part as a member of Umbridge's Inquisitorial Squad in his fifth year and using the Cruciatus Curse on other students in his seventh.

Goyle's short, bristly hair still did nothing to hide his small, dull, and deep set eyes. "Lord Potter," Goyle rasped. "I have to talk to you."

This was not the kind of thing Harry wanted to hear from someone he thought should be rotting away for his crimes. He especially didn't need someone of his ilk telling him what to do. Before Harry had the chance to tell Goyle to bugger off, another word set him back.

"Please, I have friends who want your help," Goyle looked down at his hands as if afraid to look up. By all rights, Harry should have drawn his wand. But the defeated manner in which Goyle carried himself gave him enough confidence to know he wasn't in danger. That didn't stop him from keeping his wand close at hand, however.

"And why would the likes of you want help from me?" Harry said. "You and your lot tried to kill me." An emotional dam inside Harry was giving way. As he looked at Goyle, he could feel the pain and suffering caused by this lump of a man. He was nothing more than one of Malfoy's cronies, yet here he was looking for his help.

"Please, my Lord…" Goyle started.

Harry's face flushed. "Your Lord is dead! That bloody bastard is gone forever. Don't you dare call me–"

Just as he was about to completely lose control, Harry felt a small hand grasp his arm.

"Calm down, luv. I'm here and I don't want to have to explain all this," Ginny soothed. "Come on, let's get up to the castle. The air is getting too cold for me, and I know you're probably hungry and wouldn't want to miss the feast."

As she calmed Harry down, Ginny turned to Goyle and spoke as if he had never tried to put her under the Cruciatus Curse.

"Mr. Goyle, I will tell you the same thing I told Mr. Malfoy. Lord Potter will not be accosted at your pleasure. He will, however, not leave your plea unheard. You, as all of those who sided with Voldemort, will be informed of the proper time and place for such petitions. Until that time, I suggest you avoid drawing undue attention to yourself or your claim."

"Thank you, Miss Weasley," Goyle said. He nodded to Harry, turned and left.

She then turned to Harry, whose breathing was almost at a pant. She moved closer to him and put her arm around his back. He looked as though he could have given any werewolf a run for its Galleons with the wild look in his eyes.

"Harry, it's okay now," she said while rubbing her hand up and down his back. "I guess it's a good thing I came back as soon as I could."

She could see him calming, but she knew he had a long way to go before he could be around civilized company.

"Ron is going to be fine," she offered. "Hermione will be back shortly so she can carry out her Head Girl duties. I suppose she's going to have to pick out some temporary prefects or do it all by herself. I'm sure she can do it and all, but I think she could use some help. [It would be the duty of the Headmistress, not the Head Girl.]

"Daphne is going to be fine too," she added as an afterthought.

"You know, Ginny, I really wanted to hurt him…" Harry started when Ginny cut him off.

"And what would that have accomplished? You would have been just as bad as they are, walking up to you whenever they please. And for what? It's all about their money and ancestral estates. If they weren't so stuck on that pureblood nonsense, they'd still have all their property, wouldn't they?

"Wouldn't that be just the thing?" Ginny giggled. "Sir Harry blasts a Hogwarts student the first day back. I'm sure the Daily Prophet headline would really make you happy.

"Come on then, let's get to the feast. Luna and Neville are already there and I am absolutely ravenous."

The first few days back were almost as stressful as the closing days of the war for Harry and his friends. With the kidnapping of the prefects, Hermione called on all of Gryffindor to help with the prefect duties of patrolling the corridors. She also selected several students to act as senior prefects for each house, thereby relieving her of having to choose temporary prefects from students she didn't know.

Aurors were constantly interviewing Ron, Daphne, and anyone who saw Harry on the train. Since Harry wasn't a suspect, he managed to get permission from the new Minister of Magic, Kingsley Shacklebolt, to observe the investigation. Kingsley obliged on the condition that Harry consider becoming an Auror after taking his NEWTs.

Harry was shocked at the number of photos that were taken of him during the trip and on the platform. He had heard there were "a few" photos, but when he saw the bin the Aurors were sifting through, he was amazed.

"Are those all of me?" Harry asked. "Who would take so many photos of me? I mean, what could they possibly need that many photos for? That's just plain daft."

"You should be happy so many people took photos of you, Lord Potter," said Auror John Dawlish.

"Mr. Dawlish, good to see you again. The last time we met wasn't under the most pleasant circumstances." He was referring to their meeting in the headmaster's office where he, along with Kingsley Shacklebolt, was knocked unconscious when Dolores Umbridge and Cornelius Fudge tried to arrest Dumbledore.

"Let's let bygones be bygones, shall we? And please, everyone just calls me 'Dawlish.' 'Mr. Dawlish' is my father, and 'John Dawlish' is my grandfather," Dawlish said as he went to the bin containing the photos.

"Now, about these... you should be happy that people want your photo. It has given us a step by step accounting of your whereabouts as well as the people who were impersonating you."

Harry looked at Dawlish. "What do you mean, 'people?' You mean there were more than one? How can that be? What would they want? And why take twenty-three prefects?"

Proudfoot and Savage, two other Aurors assisting Dawlish, stepped forward. They were separating the photos of Harry and his doppelgangers.

"You see there were actually four others, in addition to yourself, Lord Potter," Dawlish said. "For the most part, we believe they just asked most of the prefects to accompany them to the prefects' car. That's where they were able to subdue them and remove them from the train. Mr. Weasley was able to escape because he had been just been rowing with you and your friend. When he saw you ahead of him, he was attacked. Lucky for him the attack was not one we consider professional. It takes a great deal of magical strength to cast an Unforgivable, as you know. These people were not capable wizards. I find it hard to imagine they were this organized. If I were a betting man, I'd place my Galleons on them having someone behind the scenes directing them. Savage, tell us about your findings."

Savage cleared his throat and pulled four photos from the piles he had organized. "As you can see, there were four separate individuals. We are able to determine that based on their attire. They all wore Muggle clothing — yet they were each slightly different. It was much like they had picked up their clothing from a second hand shop. They seemed more concerned with taking people than maintaining a low profile. It seems like it was planned on a very pedestrian level. As a matter of fact, I'm very surprised they were able to pull it off with wards and such on the station and the Express.

"Be that as it may, the real question is not why, but where they went and how do we find them. This is where we analyzed the photos and have come up with a working theory."

Savage pointed at each photo as he spoke. Then he dropped the bombshell.

"It looks like an inside job. We have narrowed it down to people from Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff. We think the leader is Cho Chang."

This was nowhere near what Harry expected to hear from the usually incompetent investigations the Ministry had conducted before and during the war. The Aurors had done a lot of work and had come up with suspects. To say they made an incredible leap was like saying Harry had a couple of adventures during his time at Hogwarts. How could they have decided Cho was involved in something this serious? She could hardly hold a conversation without bursting into tears after Cedric was killed. And then there was the fact that it was Voldemort ordered Cedric's killing. They weren't engaged or anything, but they were dating. What would make her do something like this?

"As to your earlier assertion that there may be a leader behind the scenes, Dawlish, that still may be true. However, Proudfoot and I noticed this photo a student took, that shows Chang in the background. If you look closely, you'll notice just before the photo resets that Chang is starting some kind of transfiguration."

It was only a flash in the photo, until Savage waved his wand and mumbled Subsisto, and the photo slowed and stopped, showing Cho walking through and then changing into another person. The photo was too blurred to make out if she had changed into Harry. But the body type was right and she was wearing the same clothing that one of the "other" Harry's was wearing.

The sun was setting over the lake, creating a brilliant reflection of fire on it. Its glassy surface stilled, forming ripples only where the giant squid playfully lolled its tentacles in and out of the water. Studying under a favorite tree, Ginny sat with her books open. Her mind was only halfway on her task. The other half of her mind was focused on her fiancé and his current stress level.

She had known for many years that Harry was one of the most sensitive boys she had ever met. People mattered to him. Sometimes he lacked the skills to let people know why he cared. But she knew he was somehow blaming himself for Cho's change in behaviour.

She looked up just as Harry spotted her. It was another advantage of their "visit to the country" as they were fond of calling it. Since then, Ginny had been able to sense more and more about Harry. She almost touched the fabric of his soul when she thought about him. The feelings were growing stronger and more distinct. At first it felt like intuition, but now, she could almost see images in his mind. When she told him about the images, Harry always seemed pleased she was able to share his mind. That was until he slipped back into his habit of taking responsibility for anything that went wrong in the world. His reluctance to share that part of who he was resulted in their first row as an affianced couple.

The closer he got, the better she could read his mood. He was about to open his mouth when she looked up at him. "If you've come here to apologize, save it," she said. "You don't have to apologize every time we quarrel, you know. I understand you feel the way you do about people and their plights. You just need to understand that you need to set boundaries."

"I know you're right," he said. "I just wish it were that easy for me. I just can't get rid of the feeling that something I did made Cho turn away from everything and everyone she fought to save."

"Stop looking for a reason," she said. "There's no reason for you to do this to yourself. Can't 'just because' be good enough for you? Really, Harry, people do crazy things sometimes for reasons that have nothing to do with you.

"I don't want you to stop caring. It's who you are, and I love that about you. I just want to make sure you are here with me. I don't want you to be off someplace where I can't follow. Harry, I love you. And I want you to be happy–or at least happier when I do this to you."

Ginny pulled Harry down to her and kissed him with more passion than he thought possible. He fell to his knees and then to his side as she put her lips to work on him. Her hands where reaching under his shirt, caressing his chest and back. As she felt his heart race, she began to slow her ministrations on certain spots she knew would drive him wild. Tips she had read in Witch Weekly had definitely come in handy.

Harry was almost unable to breathe when Ginny's lips left his for his chest. Even though they were both of age now, Harry's experience with the fairer sex was limited to snogging in a broom cupboard. He wasn't completely uninformed, because Ron had bought and lent him a book, Ten Ways to Drive Your Witch Wild. Harry had read most of it and was sure that was how Ron finally got up the courage to tell Hermione how he felt about her.

But what was happening now was a new exhilarating feeling for him. It was riding-his-broom-at-night-exciting, fighting-a-troll-dangerous, and toe-tingling.

Before he lost all his senses, he pulled her back to his lips. Now it was his turn to deliver his desire to please. The moment his hands reached under her blouse and touched her skin, it was as if his touch had pure electricity. They both felt a return to "their visit to the country" as he began exploring places he had only dreamt about before this. If it had not been clear before, it was now: Ginny was everything to Harry. His heart raced in directions it had never been while he touched her. He loved her with all his heart and mind. But now she had stirred him on a physical level. This pushed him into a more emotional connection than he had ever thought possible. It was his soul that she was touching… she was helping him love normally, not like someone who believed love was for others because he was unworthy. The worthless feelings instilled in him by ten years of neglect and abuse was finally being excised. Ginny found the key to his heart and opened the tightly-closed door to release him as they pursued each other.

The late-summer curtain of dusk began to fall across the sky. The warmth guaranteed by the day quickly retreated. It was then that Harry realized they had been outside for quite a while.

"You know, we're going to miss dinner if we don't head for the castle soon," Harry said as he parted his lips from Ginny's.

"Harry, you know not all Weasleys think with their stomachs. As a matter of fact, I was thinking we could skip a meal."

Ginny reached up and ran her hands through his hair. Her smile stoked the flames she had already created in his heart. Then she giggled.

"What's so funny? Did I do something?"

"No, it's just that this is perfect. No one interrupted. Nothing dangerous happened. It's just perfect."

"I'll have you know, Miss Weasley, you were dangerously close to driving a certain man mad as a box of frogs. His control of himself was definitely in question."

Ginny's smile widened. Her eyes seemed to invite him to continue his quest.

"Is that so, my Lord? Well then, I guess I should limit myself to activities of a less tempting nature. I would hate to have your name sullied by scandal. What upstanding lady of stature and breeding would have you then?" she asked while arching her eyebrow.

She moved to stand, when a surprised Harry reached for her.

"Hey, where do you think you're going," he whined.

"I'm going to save you from the evil clutches of a mad woman who would ravish you and your honour. I'm going to go eat, actually. Care to join me?"

Harry chuckled and stood up. He pulled Ginny the rest of the way up and started walking with her hand in hand to the castle.